Cold: Adventures in the World's Frozen Places

From avalanches to glaciers, from seals to snowflakes, and from Shackleton's expedition to "The Year Without Summer," Bill Streever journeys through history, myth, geography, and ecology in a year-long search for cold--real, icy, 40-below cold. In July he finds it while taking a dip in a 35-degree Arctic swimming hole; in September while excavating our planet's ancient and not so ancient ice ages; and in October while exploring hibernation habits in animals, from humans to wood frogs to bears.

A scientist whose passion for cold runs red hot, Streever is a wondrous guide: he conjures woolly mammoth carcasses and the ice-age Clovis tribe from melting glaciers, and he evokes blizzards so wild readers may freeze--limb by vicarious limb.

User ratings

5 stars

4

4 stars

2

3 stars

1

2 stars

0

1 star

0

LibraryThing Review

User Review - DirkHurst - LibraryThing

Poetic and rational at the same time on what you might have thought was more a "concept" that an object of scientific examination. We adapt to cold, the world adapts to cold, animals adapt (or fail to ...Read full review

COLD: Adventures in the World's Frozen Places

User Review - Kirkus

An unexpectedly fascinating look into a seemingly banal subject.Alaska-based biologist Streever spent a year documenting the nature and science of cold. "Cold is a part of day-to-day life," he writes ...Read full review